Abstract ones, absolutely.
Because it is not securing a physical object.
It is a limited time prohibition on someone else duplicating something.
Something that may in fact be irretrievably lost if care is not made to preserve it.
Are you seriously not capable of comprehending that there is a critical difference between the two? Or that preserving things is as important as perpetual profit.
There is a balance that should be maintained.
Hostility to that balance is why most of A. A. Milne’s plays are forever lost.
Indeed. Good point. Doctor Who fans bemoan the fact that many early episodes have been lost because the BBC, in their short-sightedness reused the videotape they'd been filmed on.
You can bet that none of the new episodes will be lost regardless of what the BBC does or does not do.
Can you expand on the Milne example?
And the best way to preserve it is to maintain a vested property right to the creator or his heirs or assigns.
Just because something expires into the public domain is no guarantee that it will be lost to future generations. But if the succeeding generation has a profitable reason to preserve something it is more likely to be preserved.
In what way have you been deprived of your Liberty because someone still has a copyright on The Cat in the Hat?